92 MAINE AGRICULTURAL EXPERIMENT STATION. I916. 



At the time of the application of the dormant strength lime- 

 sulphur, May 8, the blossom buds appeared well protected. The 

 young leaves surrounding them were not over one-third inch 

 long, frequently less, and closely imbricated. Considerable 

 burning of the leaves was experienced and some of the flower 

 buds were injured, in the case of a few clusters all except the 

 central bud or Duds being killed outright. These effects soon 

 passed away, the foliage later appearing fully as vigorous and 

 abundant as that on the trees of the surrounding plots and as 

 far as could be determined the total yield of apples was not 

 lessened. The amount of scab on the fruit was slightly less 

 than that on the plot treated exactly the same with the excep- 

 tion that the late dormant spray was omitted, but the differences 

 obtained were plainly within the limits of experimental error. 



A much more significant result is the amount of russeting 

 of the fruit as shown by the records obtained at harvest time. 

 The unsprayed check plot produced approximately 3.6 per 

 cent of russeted apples, the one sprayed with 3 applications of 

 summer dilution lime-sulphur gave a little less than 10.5 per 

 cent, while the amount of russeting was increased to nearly 22 

 per cent where the late dormant spray was used in addition. 

 Here again, as in the case of bordeaux mixture already men- 

 tioned, the application of a strong fungicidal spray before the 

 blossoms were open (in this case before the flower buds had 

 enlarged materially) and long before the fruit had set was 

 followed by a marked increase in the russeting of the latter. 

 However, as has already been stated no such marked increases 

 have been experienced when the strength of the standard sum- 

 mer dilution of lime-sulphur was increased by adding 20 per 

 cent more of the concentrate. 



Self-boiled lime-sulphur: Interest in this material in con- 

 nection with apple orchard spraying is largely historical. Al- 

 though experience has shown that it is too weak a fungicide 10 

 be profitably employed in Maine for the control of apple scab, 

 the results secured with it in other parts of the country in treat- 

 ing diseases of the peach and the plum without injuring the 

 more tender foliage of this class of fruit trees, and even for 

 treating certain apple diseases, led to the immediate develop- 

 ment of the stronger and more effective lime-sulphur made by 



